Simply Listful

Growing up in the church, one of the best ways for me to memorize stuff was to put it to music. There are songs I learned (many from my mother) that help me remember the 12 apostles, the 66 books of the Bible, the 15 judges of Israel and many more (call toll free to order now). Song is also a good way to memorize scripture. One of my favorite verses is 2 Corinthians 5:21 which I fell in love with through the Acappella song "His Righteousness". To this day I can rattle off the 15 judges while singing to the tune of "Reuben and Reuben" in my head. Thanks, Mom!

In many of my recent journeys, I have been continually amazed at how easy it is to take a scripture and strip it of its meaning and regurgitate it to mean something totally different. I think this is called context. Every verse, every chapter, every story is part of  the larger narrative of God's workings in his creation culminating in the gift of His Son. When we move scripture out of the context of Jesus and His life we run the risk misunderstanding and misusing God's Word. Patrick Mead has done a recent series on this subject which is interesting reading and has certainly expanded my horizons. Look at his Tentpegs #356 and #357 starting here and here. For a bit lighter reading you can just stay right here with my ramblings.

Thinking about how easy it is to strip the context from scripture, I started wondering if many of the mnemonics we come up with to help us learn actually hold us back once we need to dig deeper. See 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 and Hebrews 6:1-3 for other writers frustrations at their audiences inability to move past simple matters on to maturity.

I am in no way saying that we shouldn't use these devices to teach our children and new Christians. But when these lists and mnemonics carry over into our advanced teachings and we use them as doctrine we are not able to mature as Christians.

Take for instance the 12 apostles. Lovely little song to the tune of "Jesus Loves Me." How many were there really? What about Matthias? What about Paul? What about Andronicus and Junias who are of note among the apostles (1 Corinthians 16:7 YLT). Were they not apostles? Why don't we have a song with 16 apostles? Granted the song specifically says that Jesus specifically called these 12, but then later he called Paul. See how we leave out part of the story. This is a pretty harmless example. As would be anything about the 66 books of the Bible. The Jewish Bible organizes and counts what we call the Old Testament books in a completely different way. No harm done. But there's a story there that we need to dig deeper to find.

I don't know of a song for the 10 commandments, but we know there are 10 of them and what they are. We  memorize these in Bible class growing up. They are the foundation of the Hebrew law. We have them on display in our courtrooms. When asked what was the 1 greatest commandment, Jesus gave us 2 as most important. All the rest just supplement these 2 and expound upon how to live them out.

The 5 steps of salvation: Hear, Believe, Repent, Confess, Be Baptized. Sometimes a 6th is added, walk faithfully. Sometimes people want to stop after 4. So much is involved in each "step" that this over simplified listing becomes more of a source for arguments than an aid in leading anyone to Christ.

The 4 types of prayer (ACTS): Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. This is both a list and an acronym. Who knows what supplication is anymore? We don't use that word. I do confess that I always have to look up what the letters in the acronym stand for. The only one I can remember is thanksgiving. Which might be why most of my prayers center on this aspect more than the others. So we boil down our prayers to 4 distinct parts thus stripping out any emotion or the need for the Spirit to groan for us.

The 5 acts of worship: Singing, Prayer, Teaching, Giving, Lord's Supper. Our concept of "worship" is a bit skewed from a lot of angles. First we note the beginning and ending of a "worship service" with specific markings and anything outside that time is not "worship", meaning we have a lot more leeway in what we can do. After the closing prayer we can have a special chorus or drama presentation or sing "Happy Birthday". But during that allotted time, we can only do the 5 things listed above. Except for announcements, those are fine. Does scripture reading fall under teaching or would that be a 6th act? Does it matter what is "in" the "worship service" and what is "out". When the church gathers together as the ekklesia what are we to do? We read about the early church gathering for the acts mentioned. They gathered for fellowship and encouragement. They gathered for meals. They gathered in homes, in the synagogues, in the temple, in caves. They gathered in secret. Nowhere do we read about any distinction between "in" and "out" regarding what to do. Certainly not a listing of what is acceptable and what is not. We have admonitions to wait for everyone before eating especially the Lord's Supper. We are to sing to each other. We are to pray with lifted hands. So much is left out of the list. If we use it as a checklist "Yep, we did those 5 things therefore we worshiped" or as an exclusionary rule set "Nope, you can't do that in worship" then we are missing the point of Romans 12:1-2 which seems to indicate that our whole lives are to be offered in sacrifice as worship to God. 

And now to my best friend CENI. The acronym that keeps on giving (and taking away). I ranted at length about this in a previous entry. This is not an acronym that I learned growing up, but the concept of the 3 ways we find authority in scripture (Command, Example, Necessary Inference) has so many holes in it that it fits right in with this discussion. CENI can be a helpful tool for interpreting scripture. But it cannot be our only tool. And it cannot be applied to each and every scripture equally. The context of God's story is too big to fit in 4 little letters. All commands are not for all people at all time. An example of someone doing something one time does not make a pattern and certainly not a binding command. All things that you necessarily infer are not necessary to infer.

I'm sure there are many other lists and acronyms that I could go on about, but these are the ones that came to mind. I don't want to leave the impression that these are harmful in any way, certainly not for teaching young people. They are great tools, but they can only take us so far. Let us get past the elementary teachings, past the milk, and journey together towards maturity and have some nice hearty steak along the way (unless you're the weaker brother and only eat veggies in which case I'll share a nice salad with you).

I Learned a New Acronym

Growing up I always heard about the CoC's standard hermeneutic for Biblical interpretation: Direct Command, Approved Example, Necessary Inference. Just recently I was reading and saw this refered to by the acronym CENI. So I learned a new acronym which is always exciting. Sometimes it is refered to as just CEI. Really it should be DCAENI, but that is much harder to say and write and not as catchy.

This whole revelation got me thinking about many things including the following discussion that took place based on a Facebook post of mine. I had been reading that the Lord's Supper was to be taken only on Sunday and every Sunday. Taking the LS on any other day of the week is sinful. We had also recently discussed this in a Sunday morning Bible class. Not liking the way that sat in my stomach, I came up with this "modest proposal" hearkening back to my HS English class days and Jonathan Swift.

I didn't take all the comments here, just a couple from David and my Mom (in honor of Mother's Day). Notice how quickly I went from the "modest proposal" into ranting and didn't stop ranting even after I said I would. Only minor edits here for grammar.

For my CoC brethren (and cisterns) and others interested in needless controversies: Since the Lord Supper is to be taken on a Sunday, each Sunday, and only on Sunday (as the general CoC instruction goes) and the examples we have in scriptures would follow the Jewish time reckoning of sundown to sundown and there was no concept of timezones, should we only be taking the Lord's Supper while the sun is up in the land of Israel? Seems we should make this a new rule and put it into practice immediately based on the CENI principles we hold so dear.

Well it would change based on the seasons as days get shorter and longer but we could probably pick a time that would always be acceptable, I'll have to figure that out and codify it into the rulebook

The earliest sunset in Israel is 4:36PM local time which translates to 8:26AM CST. The latest sunset is at 7:51PM which is 11:51AM CST. So to have a constant time throughout the year, any time between noon Saturday and 8AM Sunday local time would be acceptable. Thinking of bringing this to the elders and suggesting we adjust our service times accordingly.

You're welcome to use my timezone research so that my labors are not in vain. The problem with disputable matters is that we sit around disputing them so much, we get mad and then divide ourselves into small groups call each other false teachers and unfaithful. All this serves to harm the cause of Christ rather than spreading God's love to all. Where there is grace for moral issues, there is no grace for doctrinal issues (in the eyes of many). Jesus worshiped (as was his custom) in the Synagogue which was not authorized for Jewish worship by God but their own institution. David ate the sacred bread which Jesus said was fine. The disciples picked grain on the Sabbath which Jesus said was fine. There is grace from God, just not a lot of grace among those that should be brothers and sisters. Rant off

In addition we must also take Communion on Thursday evenings since that's when Jesus started it. Afterwards we must all go out to the local park, pray, sleep and get arrested. I'll let someone else do the timezone math on when this should all take place.

Regarding CENI (Command, Example, Necessary Inference) it is just a tool. it seems to be best suited toward evaluating what we already do rather than exploring what the Bible said God would have us do or not do. You can pass practices through the filter of CENI and come out with a Yes/No answer, but you can't use it to discover new things. Also, the implied adjectives "Direct" Command, "Approved" Example, "Necessary" Inference are really squishy and can be and have been used to filter in or out lots of ideas using many legalistic machinations that make my heart and head hurt. I've been reading too many religious blogs this week.

http://oneinjesus.info/* is a blog I've started reading this week trying to spider out and find both "liberal" and "conservative" viewpoints on a variety of issues. Some of the ulta-conservative stuff I've encountered has made me sick to my stomach. Little tiny things causing such division in God's body.

David said: "So I really wonder if there are other tools, or mechanisms, or logic paths used by others for interpreting secpriture. CENI is a fairly stright forward method of categorizing ways to glean information from scriptures. Do other people use something else? IFG-YFG-LF (I Feel Good - You Feel Good - Lets Fellowship)."

Mom said: "So are you thinking something more detailed like a NT book similar to Leviticus would solve many of these disputes?"

Yes, mom, we definitely need all the rules clearly defined so that we know where to look for the loopholes. I am starting to think that CENI and the other lists we make are good for teaching simple principles but start to fall apart amid the messiness of life. 5 steps to salvation, 5 acts of worship, 4 types of prayer. All are simplified ideas pulled from a variety of scriptures but do not tell the whole story. That's the problem with living by rules in general, there are always more rules to make. And rather than finding common ground by focusing on the important stuff, we make important that which is God has not and create divisions in his church. David, hopefully this will give you plenty of sermon fodder. Bottom line, I think it is a fallacy to say that CENI or any other hermeneutic applies universally specifically since God did not give them to us.

Another recent FB status update I spewed at the world (or at least my social network):

Speak where the Bible speaks and create binding laws for everyone where the Bible is silent.

As quickly as I came to know and understand CENI, I have come to dislike it. As I said, it can be useful, but it doesn't not tell the whole story nor is it the right tool for every encounter with scripture.

*Note: http://oneinjesus.info/ that I mentioned is not one of the ultra-conservative writings that I said hurt my head. It is a very well thought out set of writings that I appreciate very much. I just wanted to make this clear as reading through the context it might seem that I was putting it down.